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February 2011

Randomness

Stuff Parisians Like

Considering mental afflictions as signs of intellectual superiority

“Parisians value intelligence more than happiness. In Paris, happiness is the sad symptom of an atrophied brain, the curse of the stupid, the limbo of the ungifted.

Mechanically he who is not happy is gifted, he whose brain does not agree with the world is intelligent. The more brutally unfitting the person is, the more gloriously superior his brain is. In this undeniable logic lays the utter privilege of the crazies: that of being looked up to by the Parisian.

The inability to handle the vicissitudes of life testifies to the Parisian eye of an acute perception of the incertitudes and difficulties that make up life. Knowing that life is about incertitudes and difficulties is pure intelligence to the Parisian. Therefore, if they were to choose between being an irremediably unhappy creative genius or a perfectly happy nobody, most Parisians would opt for the grandiose life of misery.”

This blog by witty, Parisian sommelier Olivier Magny has had me laughing so hard as to nearly spit out my  Cabernet Franc in mid-swill. It is smart, well-written and full of bitingly funny insight. Bien joué, M. M!

Friday photo, Photography, travel

Friday Photo: Tuileries in Winter

Tuileries on a mid-December morning. © Erin Zaleski

Tuileries on a mid-December morning. © Erin Zaleski

I took this in mid-December in Paris several years ago. It was unusually sunny, but I was feeling melancholy for numerous reasons. Mostly because I had to fly back to the States the next day.

Links - Writing, Literature

Thirsty for the marvelous

 

Monday would have been Anaïs Nin’s 108th birthday. I remember reading her diaries as a teenager and yearning for transatlantic crossings, opium masquerades and rollicking affairs (just not with Henry Miller who, literary stature aside, I found rather trollish).

Mostly I remember being awestruck by her remarkable talent, insight and intense passion–for beauty, for creating and for living.

This passion is evident in much of her writing, but particularly so in this excerpt from her diary:

“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another…”

Well put, Madame.

Friday photo, Photography

Friday Photo: Dreamscape in Marble & Harlequin

“F. Juvarra: Galleria di Diana 2008” from Marco in Italy. The perspective, the light, the interplay of black and white all make for a gorgeous image. Similar landscapes have cropped up in my dreams, so there was a personal attraction to this photo as well. For more of Marco’s stunning black and white photography, visit his flickr stream.

Foreign reporting, International reporting, Journalism

Lara Logan: Female Correspondents and Sexual Abuse

The sexual assault on foreign correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo last week underscores the dangers facing many women who report from the world’s hotspots.

Veteran conflict reporter Judith Matloff discusses the issue at length in a 2007 article in the Columbia Journalism Review. (pdf)

“Female reporters are targets in lawless places where guns are common and punishment rare,” writes Matloff, who experienced a close call herself on assignment in Angola.

“War zones in particular seem to invite unwanted advances, and sometimes the creeps can be the drivers, guards, and even the sources that one depends on to do the job.”

Most troubling, says Matloff, is the number of incidents that go unreported. Fearing the loss of a beat or a job, many reporters keep quiet about sexual abuse.

“The compulsion to be part of the macho club is so fierce that women often don’t tell their bosses. Groping hands and lewd come-ons are stoically accepted as part of the job, especially in places where western women are viewed as promiscuous.”

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